Unai Emery says there were plenty of aspects of his Arsenal side’s performance against Liverpool that he liked despite losing on Saturday and singled out Joe Willock for praise.
The 20-year-old has impressed Emery over the summer and started his third straight game at Anfield, though the Merseysiders secured a 3-1 victory thanks to a header from Joel Matip and brace from Mohamed Salah.
Nevertheless, Emery was impressed with the attitude of his players and believes Willock in particular took his game on another level.
He told Sky Sports after the game: ‘I think some players like Willock, he did another step ahead here today. Matteo [Guendouzi] also good match.
‘The impact with Lucas [Torreira], with [Alexandre] Lacazette, with Mickey [Henrikh Mkhitaryan] also was good.’
One player who had a less impressive game was Dani Ceballos; the Spaniard was named the man of the match last week against Burnley but struggled at Anfield.
Speaking about the Real Madrid loanee at his post-match press conference, Emery said: ‘Ceballos today struggled more than last week, but it’s one experience more for him. We need to be optimistic.’
On the team’s performance as a whole, he added: ‘We’re disappointed with the result but we can take positive things from the game. We were a little more deep, but we also had the positivity to try to score.
‘In the first half, the best chance was for us with Pepe. The key was the second goal, it was a really soft penalty. I don’t think it was enough, but our reaction after that was good.’
